Carly Rose Sanders

My name is Carly Rose and I’ve been a competitive athlete my entire life. From early on the basic foundations of dedication and discipline were grounded into my mind, but after a severe back injury I was unable to train while starting my first year of college.

Needless to say I soon feel victim to freshman weight gain. After a year of indulging in the college lifestyle I realized I had lost my once athletic physique and soon began training again. Once I had a steady routine going I heard about fitness competitions, and the urge to compete overcame me. I knew I wanted to be on that stage, and I thought I could do it all by myse

lf. I spent hours researching the perfect workout routines, and reading endless forums of how to drop weight fast to get that toned look. I thought I’d be on stage in no time. Boy was I wrong!

But luck have it after a year of what I like to call “backyard training” I met my current boyfriend, Yuri Kostovetskiy, who was training to compete in bodybuilding competitions. This is how I met Dave, and how he became my trainer.

After my first workout with Dave I realized that no amount of information I read online could have pushed me to my potential like he does. Dave pushed me past the limits I had set for myself and made me realize how much potential I had to transform my body. After several months of training I took my first step on stage, and finally got my chance to compete; and instead of filling that need and urge I had had to compete, I became thirstier than ever for success.

Competing in Philly was an eye opening experience into a whole new level of competition, and I learned many humbling lessons. As stated, I was raised training and I was used to working hard and winning. At my first competition I came in 7th place; to be honest, at first I was upset. I wasn’t used to working so hard and not placing. After I had some time to get over it, I finally realized, it’s not about where you place, or if I came home with a trophy: It was the fact that I had set a goal of stepping on that stage knowing that I had pushed myself as hard as I could and that there wasn’t anything else I could have done to be prepared. Once I made that realization I knew I had succeeded.

I could not have done this without Dave, because he not only pushes me in the gym, but he helps me see the big picture, and how success is really defined. That being said, I’m more fired up than ever to compete in six weeks at the 2010 NPC Maryland State, and plan to keep training hard and competing in the future!